


Tumbling Down

by Whookami



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Period Typical Slurs, Set in Season 1, Steve Harrington-centric, Steve not being his best self, The graffiti scene, but there’s still hope!, even at his worst Steve wants to believe in something more, lots of swearing, negative towards Nancy and Jon because that’s how he feels atm, this got darker than I meant it to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whookami/pseuds/Whookami
Summary: This is a stupid idea. Steve knows this, but it’s not like he’s shied away from any of Tommy’s stupid ideas before. Why start now? Why start when his heart is bruised and aching and he just wants to get some relief from the sting of betrayal that he can’t find any other way to soothe? It’s better this way. To just get it out. It’s Nancy’s own fault, after all.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Tommy Hagan & Steve Harrington & Carol Perkins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Tumbling Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsEvadneCake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsEvadneCake/gifts).



> So, on a post about the sheer weirdness of how Steve & Pals got the graffiti on the Hawk’s marquee, someone suggested they just climbed on each other to do it. MrsEvadneCake added in tags that there needed to be missing scene fics of this. And this just... happened. Kinda instantly. I thought it was going to be comedic, but... no. It did not want to go in that direction. Cheated-on Steve is a moody boy (although yeah, he wasn’t actually cheated on. Yet.)  
> So yeah, uh, enjoy??

“You’re gonna fall.”

Steve frowns, trying to give Carol a vicious dose of side-eye, but he’s blocked by Tommy’s shoe and the lower part of his calf. 

“Jesus, Carol,” Tommy snarls from some point above Steve’s head, voice thick with frustration. Steve sympathizes. This whole idea has had ‘bad news’ written all over it from the beginning. Why the hell did he even agree to this? “You’re supposed to be the look out. That means you look _out_ , not at _us_!”

Carol somehow manages to make her eye roll obvious in her tone. “The guy who owns the place won’t be in for another hour or two,” she huffs between a few loud smacks of her bubble gum. “No one else in this shithole gives a damn. Just do it already.”

Easier said that done. 

Tommy is shifting and swaying, his feet digging in painfully as he tries to find his balance. It’s not very graceful to watch, and Steve only has a ground floor view of what his friend is up to. From Carol’s vantage point they probably look ridiculous. They _are_ ridiculous. His friend continues to grumble and wobble, not even close to reaching the sign above them. The moment Tommy tries to reposition one of his shoes on top of Steve’s head is when he’s had enough.

“Fuck this,” Steve grunts, taking a step backwards even as he tips his body forward. Tommy manages to hop down in time, barely catching himself in a three point crouch before glaring up to scowl at Steve.

“What the hell, man? I almost had it! I was real close!”

“Unless you grew a foot and a half in the time it took you to climb on my shoulders, there’s no fucking way.”

“You calling me short, Harrington?”

“I’m not calling you anything, I’m telling you outright. You’re short.”

“Fuck you, Steve! Without your hair you’d be the same height as me!”

Maybe that was true, once upon a time, but Steve frowns and tilts his head down a little more than he has to to fix Tommy with a tired gaze. “Whatever, man. This is dumb. It’s too high, we’re too short, whatever. It’s not happening.”

“You’re such a fucking quitter,” Tommy tosses back at him, the corner of his lip lifting in disgust.

It always goes like this. Tommy gets an idea and Steve backs his play. When shit goes wrong, or just isn’t working, Steve tries to get out only to have his friend rag on him for never following through. It’s a routine by now. It’s as well known and predictable as the plays they’ve drilled endlessly in basketball practice. Nothing ever changes.

Steve sighs and hangs his head. “Yeah, sorry. Just, y’know. Frustrated. Or something.”

Tommy’s mouth instantly smooths out into a smirk. He’s won, like always, and isn’t above revelling in it. “I’ll bet,” he snickers, punching Steve in the shoulder just a little too hard. Not enough to bruise, but enough that Steve will _remember_ , and think about it the next time he challenges one of Tommy’s ideas. Carol walks around him, a bubble expanding from her mouth and popping loudly just as she passes Steve’s ear. He hates that sound. Hates gum in general. Sometimes he thinks Carol is so annoying about it just because she knows how much it bothers him. She gives him a sympathetic look that couldn’t be more disingenuous if she tried.

“If Nancy’s giving it to Byers on the side, you gotta be getting a little _frustrated_ by the lack of attention by now.”

Steve’s thankful he has plenty of practice keeping his expression cool and disinterested, he only wishes he had the same tight grip on his heart. Tommy’s comment cuts deep and Steve just wants to... wants to... well, he isn’t really sure. He’s torn between wanting to scream, wanting to punch something, and... god. Goddamnit. Wanting to _cry_. Some pathetic part of himself that he thought he’d left behind years ago wants to retreat to the safety of the covers on his bed and just curl up and cry for a while.

When did he become such a pussy?

Oh, he knows when. Or really, he knows he is exactly as he’s always been, he’s just gotten better at ignoring it. Ignoring the way his heart stutters painfully in his chest when his parents stare through him. The ache when he has to hold himself back from being honest with his friends because he knows they would tease him. The emptiness when he breaks up with another girl because he doesn’t believe in love. Can’t believe in love. Can’t believe there’s enough inside himself for anyone to ever really love, so he has to leave first, before they have the chance to realize it. 

That’s why Nancy cheated. She’s smart. She saw inside Steve and saw all the nothingness that fills him and knew he wasn’t enough.

It’s not his fault. He didn’t ask to be like this. She should have... should have...

_ Eight year old Steve is fidgeting awkwardly in front of the oak desk outside his father’s office door. No one looked at him twice as he scuttled by row after row of cubicles, his head down and a letter clamped in both hands tightly to his chest. No one is looking at him now, either, his father’s secretary curiously absent.  _

_ He tried to go home but the front door was locked and Mom’s car wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She was probably out with her friends, shopping in the city, or having drinks and gossiping about the other ladies who they didn’t like. There was no telling when she might be home, and it was too cold for Steve to just wait around outside playing, like he usually would. The only other option had been his father’s workplace. _

_ It won’t take long for his dad to realize that Steve is way too early to be out of school, and then he’ll have to give him the letter his teacher wrote. The letter that explains that Steve was misbehaving and incapable of just sitting still and paying attention to his lessons like the other kids. He’ll have to hear the same angry lecture from his father for the third or fourth time now. He’s already lost count. _

_ He exhales once, long and deep, before drawing himself up to his full (not very impressive) height. Normally his dad’s secretary would buzz over the phone to say Steve was coming in, but this time he’ll just have to walk in unannounced. Steve’s hand closes over the brightly burnished handle and turns. _

_ Poking his head in through the split between the doors, Steve isn’t sure at first what he’s looking at. His dad’s secretary is sitting on the edge of his huge imposing desk with her sky blue skirt pooled up around her waist. His dad is pressed up close against her, between her legs, and the look on his face is a weird mixture of anger and focus, or at least that’s what it looks like to a confused eight year old Steve. Even that young and naive though, he knows on some primitive level that what he’s witnessing is something that he shouldn’t be. His father’s eyes flew open large with outrage and something else, something (like fear) Steve can’t quite identify. The secretary has clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks turning a flaming red. _

_ “This one is even younger than the last,” comes a dim echo of his mother, her voice rising up from the pool of Steve’s memories. “How long do you want to bet it will be until he’s fucking her too?” The brittle laughter of her friends, the clack of their wine glasses against the patio table, all suddenly real and present and full of a meaning that Steve had never caught onto before. _

_ How long until he’s fucking her? Cheating with her? Cheating cheating cheatingcheatingchea— _

“Yo, Earth to Steve. You in there, space cadet?” Tommy’s giving his shoulder a vicious shake, looking at him with a disapproving frown that Steve is way too familiar with. Steve gets distracted easily and often, trapped in his own thoughts when he doesn’t mean to. Carol and Tommy hassle him about it from time to time, and he always feels bad for zoning out on them. “C’mon, man, we got a plan.”

“Plan?”

Carol’s stare is flat and annoyed. “Yeah, for dealing with the little bitch. You _do_ remember, right?”

Steve gives her a snide look, mocking her words by repeating them back in a childish falsetto. Yeah. He remembers. He remembers everything. Too much really. Everything is always too much. “So, how are we doing this?” Steve asks, the desire for some kind of vengeance finding itself rekindled inside him.

“We each take one of Carol’s legs and we boost her, like cheerleaders do.”

“We aren’t cheerleaders.”

“Carol was,” Tommy points out, leaving off the part where she got cut from the squad for smoking in the girl’s washroom when she should’ve been at practice. It wasn’t a big deal, they all know the only reason she’d even joined the team had been because her mom was from Texas and down there cheerleading was a _big_ _thing_ , and she’d been pressured into trying to live out her mother’s faded dreams. Steve is almost kind of envious. His parents had given up on living vicariously through him ages ago.

“Okay, yeah, fine,” he agrees finally, giving Carol a quick appraisal. She’s light enough, sure, they can probably hoist her high enough.

Under Carol’s direction, the two boys make a bridge out of their arms, and from there she clambers almost effortlessly up onto their shoulders, her boots left behind on the sidewalk to make it even easier for her. They’re a little lopsided, but Steve isn’t about to tank things all over again by pointing out that he definitely has a couple of inches on Tommy, even without his hair.

“Okay, now you gotta put out one hand so I can put my foot on it, and wrap your other arm around to stabilize my calf. Then, lift.”

She makes it sound a lot easier than it actually is. It doesn’t help that Steve is also on the wrong side to be using his dominant hand, so Carol wobbles unsteadily for a few tense moments cradled in his left palm. Both boys count down together from three and then throw all their power into lifting the girl above them even higher. She teeters slightly, but her painted nails find the marquee and grab on quickly to steady herself. The small look up that Steve risks has him feeling impressed, Carol standing on their raised hands, looking as calm as if she’s just waiting for the bus, or for the bell to ring to call them to class. 

Holy shit. They’re _doing_ this. For a split second Steve feels a thrill of victory racing through his veins before reality reasserts itself with a painful reminder.

“Hey, what am I even writing?” Carol calls down, shaking the can of paint idly as she frowns at the sign.

“Shouldn’t it be obvious?” Tommy chuckles, making his girlfriend rock unsteadily enough that she flicks a tight grimace down at him. “It’s All the Right Moves, yeah? Only now it’s staring Nancy ‘the slut’ Wheeler.”

Carol snickers and in a few seconds Steve hears the telltale sound of the spray can painting their new addition to the Hawk’s marquee.

“Shuffle me to the right,” Carol orders and they obey without thinking, doing whatever she tells them as quickly as they can. Steve’s arms ache terribly and he knows he can only keep holding her up another minute or so. Tommy’s raised arm is already trembling and the strain is showing plainly on his face, sweat standing out obviously along his brow and sliding down the side of his cheek.

With a triumphant ‘ _Ha_!’ Carol finishes and lets the can drop to the ground, almost hitting her boyfriend in the head as it falls. “Okay, on three you let go of my legs and I’ll hop off your hands. Steve’ll catch me.”

“Hey, I can catch you!” Tommy protests indignantly, trying and failing to still his shaking arms.

“Pfft. I’ve seen you play basketball, remember? Steve’ll catch me.”

There’s no time to argue as the girl instantly begins her countdown and the boys can only scramble to do as she’d instructed. She gracefully hops from their hands and despite the way his arms ache from wrist to shoulder, and even down into his back, Steve manages to catch her bridal style and sets Carol back gently onto the sidewalk. She lifts both arms like a gymnast and takes a small bow, ruining the cuteness of the gesture by blowing another huge bubble and letting it pop as she stands back up.

“We, uh, we probably shouldn’t stick around, yeah?”

“Aw, we can’t even stay a moment to admire my handiwork?” Carol pouts at Steve, using Tommy as a crutch so she can slide her boots back on.

The three look up together at the sign above, Nancy’s name now emblazoned below the movie’s title, calling her out for the whole town to see.

Steve thought he would feel a little better after finishing Tommy’s plan, after getting his anger and frustrations out of his head and into the real world. The only thing he feels though is hollow. Hollow and tired.

“It’s real nice, babe,” Tommy grins, turning to capture Carol’s lips and press her up against the side of the building, the pair both revelling in their victory. Why is it theirs, though? Neither of them give a shit about Nancy, they hadn’t liked her from the start. This is supposed to be Steve’s victory, but it feels so meaningless.

Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Steve turns his back to the pair and stalks off around the corner of the Hawk, heading toward the back alley for a much needed cigarette.

By the time Carol and Tommy join him Steve has finished two smokes and the pair have Nicole trailing after them.

“Y’know,” Nicole begins, sidling up beside Steve in a not terribly subtle way, flicking her hair off the side of her neck so he has a clear view of her pale skin. “Nancy _deserved_ that, but like, Byers is the one you really need to watch out for.”

“Watch out for?” Carol laughs, taking a drag off the cigarette Tommy lit for them to share. “What’s he gonna do? Tell his crazy-ass mother on us?”

“Lonnie Byers was mean as fuck, my dad told me. I bet his son is too. He probably got mad and killed his brother or something.”

“Y’know, I said something like that,” Tommy agrees, trying to sound sage and mostly failing because no matter how hard he tries, he always sounds just a little weaselly. “That Byers probably killed the kid himself.”

“That’s so fucked up!” Carol exclaims, but the look in her eyes is hardly disturbed. The more twisted the story gets, the more she’ll enjoy telling it to whoever will listen at school the next day.

Steve remains silent, listening as the three laugh and toss their theories around, each one putting Byers at the centre of the crime. Steve doesn’t really believe it, doesn’t think the other boy actually murdered his own brother, but it’s hard to ignore their words altogether. 

He’s heard plenty of stories about the family from different sources over the years. The dad is a grade-A fuck up. An alcoholic and a gambler, with the kind of temper you couldn’t predict and didn’t want to risk falling on the wrong side of. The mom is supposedly a basket case, a nervous wreck who couldn’t support her family without making her oldest son work a job to make ends meet. Some said she’d spent time in a looney bin as a teen, and others said she was so weird because Lonnie had knocked her around a little and it made her go funny in the head. Steve isn’t sure what he believes, except that it’s clear that a family like the Byers are destined to get dragged through the mud by life no matter what the truth is. And now Jonathan’s dragged Nancy, and Steve, down with him.

It isn’t fair. He’d actually really liked Nancy. He’d found himself falling hard for her since the first moment they’d spoken. Something about her made him feel... seen. Like, even if she had noticed all the emptiness inside him, maybe she didn’t mind. Maybe she was the kind of girl who would take a chance a try to fill up all that empty space with something of herself, something a little bit better, a little bit more than Steve could ever be on his own.

She hadn’t been that kind of girl after all. She’d been like all the others, all the (secretaries) girls Steve has been with before. As empty and meaningless as himself. Just wanting to take her piece and move on to the next guy.

Well fuck that.

Nancy ‘the slut’ Wheeler. 

She better hope Byers doesn’t care that she isn’t any better or any different than anyone else, because when Steve is through there definitely won’t be anyone else ever wanting to date her.

She’d taken a piece of him and gone and slept with Byers anyway. 

Steve was taking that piece back, with interest. Fuck Nancy Wheeler and fuck Byers.

And maybe,

Just maybe,

Fuck Steve Harrington and the hurt little voice in his head that won’t stop crying and wondering why he was never enough for anyone to love.

**Author's Note:**

> The post that inspired this:
> 
> https://mrs-evadne-cake.tumblr.com/post/642126443643633664


End file.
